Ohio Authorities Recover Amazon Delivery Van Stolen on New Year’s Eve
Days after an Amazon delivery driver was carjacked at gunpoint in Chicago, Ohio law enforcement is investigating the New Year’s Eve theft of one of the company’s vehicles.
A driver delivering a package in Harrison Township reported the vehicle stolen to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday. “I was at the porch and they jumped in the van and took off with it,” he said. The driver estimated that perpetrators stole nearly 80 percent of his delivery load.
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On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that it located the Amazon delivery van shortly after the theft, emptied of over 100 packages. The incident remains under investigation.
Amazon spokesperson Sharyn Ghacham told Sourcing Journal the company is supporting local law enforcement’s investigation, and will continue investing to protect drivers and the public at large. The company said it has a process to evaluate incidents where drivers report feeling unsafe, and provides round the clock support for drivers through a safety helpline. Drivers are instructed not to intervene in an attempted carjacking or package theft from their vehicles.
The holiday season saw an uptick in similar crimes, impacting delivery drivers for Amazon, FedEx and UPS. In November, an Amazon delivery driver in the San Francisco Bay Area was kidnapped on the job, and forced to withdraw cash from a Bank of America ATM before being released. A week before Christmas, a Florida woman was arrested for trailing an Amazon delivery van near Orlando, and stealing packages she planned to give as gifts.
Home security research group SafeWise reported that porch piracy impacted 76 percent people in the U.S. last year, estimating that nearly 119 million parcels were stolen in 2023. More than half (55.5 percent) of those packages were delivered by Amazon.
The SafeWise survey of 5,000 U.S. residents revealed that the value of most stolen packages averaged $50-$200, with 71 percent valued at $100 or less. Using $50 as an estimated average cost per package, delivery theft accounted for up to $6 billion in losses—5 percent higher than 2022, according to SafeWise projections.
Some 65 percent reported being more worried about package theft in 2023 than they were a year prior, with consumers in Texas, Washington, Nevada and California concerned about the issue. After having a package stolen, about 80 percent reported taking action, like installing security cameras (23 percent) or arranging for packages to be delivered to elsewhere (35 percent).
Notably, just 21 percent of those who experienced package theft reported the incident to law enforcement, and only 9 percent filed an insurance claim. Instead, the burden of making things right has fallen mostly on retailers. Forty-seven percent of shoppers who had a package stolen in 2023 said they received a replacement from the seller, while 37 percent received a refund. Just 15 percent of shoppers said they received a refund from mail carriers when a package went missing.
Dr. Ben Stickle, a professor of criminal justice administration at Middle Tennessee State University and SafeWise advisor, called package theft “a low-entry crime,” noting that “there are no special skills needed to walk up a driveway and steal a package.”
“What’s more, the risk is very low as well, and punishment, even if caught, is minimal,” he said. Charges for these crimes vary at state and federal level. If a package is delivered by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), theft may be prosecuted as a mail theft felony. However, stealing a package dropped off by a private company like UPS, FedEx or Amazon comes with lesser penalties ranging from petty theft to grand theft, trespassing and mail theft.
“Additionally, the media attention given to package thieves may draw more people into the crime as they’re made aware of the opportunity,” Stickle said.
